One year later and Anne Hathaway has gone from hearing her name announced to reading off the nominees at the 82nd Annual Academy Award nomination ceremony. Looking resplendent in a white pantsuit, Annie passed the baton onto the next crop of Oscar darlings by uttering their names at the early morning event.

And there were quite a few surprises passing through her pale pucker — most notably, Maggie Gyllenhaal in the Best Supporting Actress Category, Jeremy Renner in the Lead Actor category, “In The Loop” snagging a much deserved Original Screenplay nomination and “The Blind Side” doing just that to everyone in Hollywood by scoring a Best Picture nomination.

Which isn’t to say some expected faces didn’t make appearances as well: Meryl, Sandra, George, Mo’Nique, Tarantino and Cameron all earned their assumed accolades. So let’s take a look at the nominees, category by category, and decide who will win — but more importantly, who should win!

There is no doubt 2009 will be remembered as the year a community of tall, muscular, half-naked blue creatures wowed the world, changed the face of film and became one of the highest grossing movies of all time (potentially the highest, stay tuned)! So there will be a major desire to reward that kind of achievement, but with all the plagiarism claims, I wonder if “Avatar” will be honored instead in the technical categories — where it was more groundbreaking — leaving Quentin Tarantino to pick up that Best Picture Oscar he so rightly deserved in 1994!

After walking away with this award from nearly every major awarding organization, Jeff Bridges win is one of the night’s only certainties. However, Jeremy Renner’s nomination proves there are enough voters out there pushing for the little film that could, so if anyone is going to rain on Jeff’s parade, it’s Jeremy.

First of all, let’s just bask in the fact that Sandra Bullock is now an Oscar nominee. Loves it. What I am still surprised about is that her first nom came for “The Blind Side” — and what’s even more surprising is that many think she could claim the statue! My money’s on Meryl, but I really wish Gabourey Sidibe would win Best Actress since she not only delivered the best performance of the year, but one of the most stirring in recent memory.

Mo’Nique will win — so now let’s talk about this morning’s two biggest shocks: Penelope Cruz and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s nominations! Penne snagged a Golden Globe nod for her above board work in the subpar “Nine” while Maggie has gone almost completely unacknowledged for her performance alongside Jeff Bridges. In both cases, the nomination is the honor!

There is no doubt James Cameron reinvented the way people watch movies with “Avatar,” so hearing his name read on Oscar night would not only be unsurprising, but also deserved. However, growing support (and a recent Director’s Guild of America win) for Kathryn Bigelow seems to indicate that the new decade will kick off with Kathryn becoming the first woman to ever win a Best Director Academy Award!

Whenever an animated movie sneaks into this category, voters go wild for it! But since Quentin is going to get shut out of the Best Director category, this would be a wonderful place to reward him since words are kinda his heroin.

Best Adapted Screenplay“An Education” “District 9” “In the Loop”

“Precious” “Up in the Air”

Perhaps the most deserving collection of nominees out of any category, the 2010 Best Adapted Screenplay statue will certainly fall to a worthy winner this year. “Up in the Air” is on a hot streak with other voting bodies, but in my eyes the best name to be announced all morning was “In The Loop!” This criminally underseen political comedy is not only the days biggest surprise, but also its best!